<p>I recently got accepted to the College of Engineering as a Freshman w/ undeclared major. I'm really happy about this, but I wanted to know more about it.</p>
<p>I know that UIUC is ranked highly for its engineering, 5th in the US by some, and 3rd in the world by others, so what I am wondering is how it will help me in the long run. I know the debate of how much the prestige of your undergrad university affects which grad university you go to has been beaten to death, but I wanted to know whether graduating from UIUC engineering as an exceptional student will allow me to continue onto a top grad engineering university with ease.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you can be an “undeclared” student in the department of Engineering. When you fill out the application form for UIUC, you apply to a specific Engineering field—either civil, mechanical, chemical, general… Also, from previous posts, it appears that the field of “General Engineering” doesn’t have as many job opportunities available. The jobs seem to go to students with a more focused Engineering education. My son had considered it as an option before he visited the school, thinking that it was a catch-all major for students that were undecided. After he visited, he found out it was not at all what he expected and chose Mechanical Engineering. I don’t think General Engineering is ranked in the US News and World reports listings. From his visit to UIUC, my son got the feeling that General Engineering is not really a recognized engineering field. Check past CC discussions for the discussion of this topic.</p>
<p>“My son’s feeling is that it is not really a recognized engineering field.” By this statement, I mean that not every Engineering school offers a General Engineering" degree, so employers outside of the UIUC job market won’t necessarily hire these people. They will hire the Electrical, Chemical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineers over the “General Engineer”.</p>
<p>To answer your question, yes, plenty of UIUC engineering students go on to top grad schools like Stanford and UC Berkeley. There isn’t much higher in terms of prestige for undergrad engineering than UIUC, so you’re fine in that aspect. Just as a reminder though, engineering here is an incredibly difficult program, so going on to a top grad school won’t be “easy” persay, but UIUC is plenty good enough to get you into whatever grad school you want. </p>
<p>Also, just in response to momgrad, there is now an engineering undeclared major for freshman who don’t know what field they want to specialize in. As far as I know, there aren’t any classes specific to this path, you just take general prerecs before you decide on a specific engineering major. Also, I believe general engineering was renamed industrial engineering to clear up the misconception that general engineering is an overview of all the fields of engineering.</p>
<p>enzajunior, thank you for the update.</p>
<p>There is an undeclared engineering major</p>